2014 State of Customer Experience: Who Are UK’s 2014 Leaders And What Can We Learn From Them? (Part 2)

In this post I continue the conversation I started in the last post. The focus of this conversation is the customer experience themes that Nunwood call attention to in their 2014 UK Analysis Report.

What Are The Primary Customer Experience Themes?

I shared one of these customer experience themes with you in the last one. So let’s start on that one and flesh it out.

1. Employees Come First, Customers Come Second

Let’s start this theme with a few paragraphs from the Nunwood report (bolding mine):

These excellent companies realise that value is created commercially and reputationally at the interface between the employee and customer – and it really does happen in that order…… So it is no accident that members of the top 10 also feature highly in the Sunday Times best places to work survey.

As such, the management lesson for brands aspiring to join the top 10 is clear: those responsible for the employee experience need to be fundamental and genuine partners in building customer experiences. Internal values, behavioural frameworks, competencies, training plans and recruitment principles are fundamental determinants of CX success.

I find myself in full agreement with that which Nunwood articulate. And I acknowledge Nunwood for talking straight and pointing out the Achille’s Heel of just about every Customer initiative (strategy, CX, CRM, customer service) that I have been involved in since 1999. It continues to be an Achilles Heel because there is no listening for the soft stuff, the human stuff, and certainly not for treating employees right. That which Nunwood is pointing out has been pointed out before. It even has a name: Service-Profit chain.

If this is the challenge then what is the ‘solution’ that Nunwood proposes? Let’s listen (bolding mine):

…. HR are seen as playing a role in implementing some customer journeys, but are not genuine partners in the overall strategy. Putting in place a progressive customer governance, which unites marketing, operational and HR professionals, is an important consideration ….

Is that enough? Is it enough just to get the marketing, HR operational folks and let them cook up customer and employee experience excellence? No. Why not? Because technology plays such a critical part. Technology enables or constrains, it facilitates or hinders, it can liberate or enslave. So this is what Nunwood says (bolding mine):

… the CIO will also have representation in this group – as systems and technologies become a vital determinant of the kind of employee and customer experiences that these brands are seeking to forge.

2. The CX Champions Benchmark Themselves Against The Best Organisations In The World

Industries can be meaningful ways of looking at the business world. And looking at and across the players in a particular bucket, category, can be a useful exercise – if you are financial analyst or the like. When it comes to excellence in Customer Experience staying in these artificial silos is limiting. Why? Let’s listen to Nunwood (bolding mine):

…. experienced, well-informed consumers have expectations that are no longer industry-specific. A consumer’s experience with Amazon or Appliances Online resets their expectations for all digital experiences. The same for the purchase experience in Lush – for all retail experiences…… the excellent companies are simply following their customers in expanding their field of vision to discover what great looks like and then building that into the experiences they create, fuelling a constant cycle of setting and resetting expectations.

In Which Domains Are The CX Champions Shaping-Setting-Resonating With Customer Expectations?

1. Standing For Something Meaningful and Facilitating Values Based Buying

In an age where ‘God is dead’, an age of nihilism, an age where one can buy just about everything, what is it that many yearn for and cannot be bought? Meaning. Let’s listen to Nunwood (bolding mine):

Lush and before it Body Shop, are indicative of a shift toward value based buying. The increased expectation that, not only are the products and services great, but they also bring with them some form of attached meaning. Consumers buy into what the firm stands for as much as its products.

Reading that paragraph, I find myself reminded by Simon Sinek. He has been saying pretty much the same thing for a couple of years. And using Apple to illustrate this thought. If you haven’t watched his TED talk then I urge you to do so.

Just in case you think that meaning and values are only for the likes of Lush or the Body Shop then Nunwood has this ‘warning’ for you (bolding mine):

2. Ease Through Seamless Omni-Channel Integration

I prefer to do business with those organisations which make it easy for me to do business with them. Turns out my wife and children are very much like me. In fact, I have yet to come across anyone who will admit to preferring doing business with the folks that make it really hard to do business with them. Here’s what Nunwood says (bolding mine):

John Lewis has set the benchmark for online retailing. Customers are empowered to purchase how they want, in the way that they want – without being pushed to low cost channels. First Direct works seamlessly across online and telephony, as does Appliances Online.

Here, it occurs to me that it is worth pointing out that First Direct is No 1 on the 2014 list of CX Champions. John Lewis is No 2. And Appliances Online is a new entrant at No 6. So making it easy for customers to do business with you through an integrated omni-channel experience makes some impact with/on customers.

3. Making It Easy For Customer To Quench Their Thirst For Useful Information

I have gotten so much into conducting some due diligence before buying that it has become an automatic reflex. Looks like there are many like me. Here is Nunwood again (bolding mine):

…. pre-purchase research has become its own form of entertainment as consumers educate themselves and each other. Amazon has led the way in equipping customers with a vast database of reviews, but Appliances Online has gone one step further, publishing reviews of its performance online, as have FirstDirect.

If I had to sum all of this up I’d sum it up as follows:

Stand for something meaningful – that which resonates with you and your customers;

Provide solid products and services and ensure that you pass the Ronseal test;

Make it easy for your customers to do business with you by providing them with honest-useful information (that helps them in their buying decisions) and by ‘integrating your people-process-technology’ so as to provide an effortless omni-channel customer experience.

Enough for today. Let’s pick up this conversation in the next post where I propose to focus on highlighting some key features of the 2014 CX Champions. I wish you a great weekend and thanks for listening.

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Author: Maz Iqbal

Experienced management consultant working at the intersection of strategy, customer, and technology. Combine a tendency to think strategically with a penchant for getting my hands dirty at the coalface of implementation.
View all posts by Maz Iqbal